Xochitl Torres Small, Yvette Herrell to vie for Pearce's seat in Congress

LAS CRUCES - In a year when female candidates have been on the rise throughout the country, two women will compete to become the first female member of Congress from southern New Mexico.

Xochitl Torres Small, a Democrat, and Yvette Herrell, a Republican, both claimed wins in Tuesday’s primary election to advance to the November general election. The winner will claim the seat that has been held by Steve Pearce since 2002. Pearce stepped down this year to run for governor instead.

Torres Small is a water lawyer and former staffer for U.S. Sen. Tom Udall. The wife of state Rep. Nathan Small, she is running for office for the first time.

“I’m really just so grateful to the grassroots campaign and the volunteers that have been working hard to make this happen,” Torres Small said Tuesday night.

She defeated Madeline “Mad” Hildebrandt, a history teacher and Coast Guard veteran. As of presstime, Torres Small had more than 75 percent of the vote.

“I’m grateful to Mad Hildebrandt for the work that she’s done to energize the district,” Torres Small said.

She said she was looking forward to starting the campaign in the general election.

“The truth is, Washington doesn’t get us,” she said. “It’s time to start fighting for southern New Mexico.”

The race on the Republican side was closer. At press time, Herrell had recorded just under 50 percent of the vote in a four-way race. Monty Newman, a former mayor of Hobbs, was second with more than 32 percent, and had conceded. 

Other candidates in the race were Gavin Clarkson, a former Trump administration appointee and NMSU instructor, who had 11 percent of the vote, and Clayburn Griffin, with 6 percent.

Herrell has served four terms in the New Mexico House of Representatives, where she was ranked by the Rio Grande Foundation as its most conservative member. She said she has had her eye on the seat for some time, and told Pearce several years ago that she intended to run whenever he was ready to step down.

Herrell sits on the Board of Directors for the American Legislative Exchange Council, which she said has introduced her to many of the people and issues she would be dealing with in Congress.

“Working on a lot of these issues, the doors have been opened for me to meet with a lot of the new cabinet members, specifically on issues that hit New Mexico,” she said before the primary.

Pearce has held the seat since 2002, with the exception of one term (2008-2010) when he stepped down to run for U.S. Senate. Harry Teague, a Democrat, won the seat that year, but Pearce came back to reclaim it in the next election.